Brazil Heads to a Runoff as Flávio Bolsonaro Tops Lula, Nantucket Search Suspended: Sunday’s Top News

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2026 — Brazil voted and nobody cleared 50 percent, so South America’s biggest democracy goes to a runoff in three weeks. Closer to home, the Coast Guard suspended its search off Nantucket, a top OpenAI safety voice walked out with a blistering goodbye, and Hollywood’s $111 billion mega-merger is two days from closing. Here are the nine stories that mattered.

1. Brazil heads to a runoff: Flávio Bolsonaro vs. Lula on October 25

Brazil voted Sunday and nobody cleared 50 percent, so South America’s biggest democracy goes to a runoff on October 25. Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, took 47.45 percent of valid votes to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s 44.66 percent with over 97 percent counted, per the country’s electoral authorities — about 56 million votes to 53.7 million. Bolsonaro outperformed most final polls, which had shown Lula narrowly ahead. “Brazil wants change. That’s the reading of what happened today,” Bolsonaro said, calling it “the end of the Workers’ Party era.” Lula called the result “unexpected” and promised a new campaign: “I am very good in the knockout stage.” The next presidential term begins January 5, 2027. Our pre-election coverage

2. Coast Guard suspends the Nantucket search; six aboard presumed dead

The Coast Guard suspended its search Sunday evening for the missing medical transport jet off Nantucket, after about 66 hours and roughly 4,445 miles of air-and-sea searching. The Gulfstream G-100, operated by Canada’s Latitude Air Ambulance, vanished early Saturday on a flight from Bermuda to Boston after plunging about 13,000 feet in two minutes, with debris later found roughly 20 miles south of Nantucket. “Suspending a search is not an easy decision,” said Rear Adm. Matthew Lake. All six aboard — four Latitude crew members, a patient and the patient’s family escort — are presumed dead, the company said. The latest on the search

3. OpenAI safety chief David Robinson quits: “the time for trial and error is over”

David Robinson, who led OpenAI’s safety reports for 12 frontier-model launches over three and a half years and helped draft its Preparedness Framework, resigned and published an essay in The Atlantic on Saturday, headlined “I Quit OpenAI Because Its Culture Is Broken,” in which he wrote the company’s “iterative deployment” approach guarantees periodic failures as systems grow more capable, and that frontier labs should operate with the layered redundancy of nuclear plants or busy airports. His exit came days after OpenAI parted ways with three safety researchers over mishandled confidential information. An OpenAI spokesperson said the company pauses training or holds back models “when we need to slow down.” More on the resignation

4. Paramount–Warner Bros. closes Tuesday: Hollywood’s biggest merger ever

The $111 billion Paramount takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery — the most expensive takeover in Hollywood history — is set to close Tuesday, October 6. The final legal hurdle fell Wednesday when a federal judge approved Paramount’s settlement with 12 state attorneys general who had sued to block it. The deal, already cleared in 68 jurisdictions including the Justice Department, brings together HBO Max and Paramount+, CBS, CNN, HBO, the DC Universe, Harry Potter and Mission: Impossible under one roof. The Writers Guild separately settled its own challenge while warning the merger will “cause damage to writers.” What the merged giant looks like

5. GTA VI: Rockstar drops fresh world details via a fashion-magazine tie-in

Rockstar Games shared new Grand Theft Auto VI details through a feature in LOVE magazine: the satire is meant to feel “more over the top, more insane, more in your face” than real life, aimed at influencer culture and digital life. Leonida is pitched as the biggest, most densely packed GTA map yet — Vice City, Everglades-like swampland, hurricanes and more than 170 animal species, with streets layered in overlapping conversations, talk radio, ads and political robocalls. Lucia — the series’ first fully voiced female protagonist — and Jason are the story’s emotional center. GTA VI is still locked for November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. All the new details

6. Olivia Dean’s label sued over “I’ve Seen It” and a Bill Withers classic

The publisher behind Bill Withers’ catalog has sued over Olivia Dean’s “I’ve Seen It.” Mattie Music Group, doing business as Bleunig Music, filed suit Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles claiming the closing track from Dean’s 2025 album The Art of Loving copies the melody of Withers’ 1981 hit Just the Two of Us. The suit names Capitol Records, Universal Music Group, Sony’s U.S. publishing company and Kobalt — not Dean or her co-writers Bastian Langebæk and Max Wolfgang. Bleunig says its musicologist concluded the two share “substantial similarities” in protected musical expression, and that it sent cease-and-desist letters in August before suing for damages, profits and an injunction. Inside the copyright fight

7. Cornell president calls alleged 2024 gang rape “deeply disturbing”

Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff broke his silence Saturday in an eight-minute video message addressing a former student’s lawsuit alleging she was drugged and sexually assaulted by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024. Kotlikoff called the allegations “deeply disturbing,” said the university does not “have all the answers,” and welcomed New York Attorney General Letitia James’ takeover of the criminal probe, plus an independent review of the university’s handling of the case. The suit, filed September 16 in New York Supreme Court by a woman identified as Jane Doe, names the university and seven former students.

8. G7 taps 100 million barrels of oil and diesel from emergency reserves

G7 leaders agreed Friday to release up to 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel from emergency reserves over four months, coordinated through the International Energy Agency — with a substantial diesel tranche front-loaded in the first 20 days. The move targets record fuel prices driven by the war with Iran and attacks on Russian refineries: U.S. diesel sits at a record $6.50 a gallon, Brent crude settled near $102.25 and WTI around $91.11. President Trump had threatened to ban U.S. diesel exports, then dropped the idea after the deal. Analysts caution the release equals only about a day of global demand. How the reserve release works

9. Apple Pay finally lands in India — 12 years after its U.S. debut

Apple Pay has officially entered India through a partnership with Axis Bank, more than a decade after launching in the United States. Eligible Axis Bank Visa and Mastercard credit-card holders can now use Apple Pay on compatible Apple devices for contactless, online and in-app payments. Apple has long been shut out of India’s payments market, dominated by the homegrown UPI system; the Axis tie-up gives the company its first real foothold there. What Indian iPhone users get